convenience, choice, and lower prices, without getting into the sales tax. >> a consultant for the retail industry leaders association -- whether goods over the internet should be taxed. monday night at 8:00 on "the communicator's." on c-span 2. >> on saturday, jill biden, wife of vice president joe biden, campaigned in minnesota. it begins with remarks by the governor of minnesota. >> a great honor for us to have you here, dr.biden. we have such a great opportunity in minnesota to roll the dice and sweep it all. we have elected a majority to the minnesota house the set-- [applause] to terrible constitutional amendments that have --

[applause] we can re-elect our congressmen and women and add congressional seats. and reelect are tremendous -- she is here. and also, whose district we are now. and then, of course, the reason we are all here today, we need to reelect a great president and a great vice president. [applause] you did not come here to hear

about them from me. you came here -- i did not even come here to hear a me. i came here to hear dr. biden. >> one reason i am supporting president obama is that i have a feeling he is grounded in the real world. as i started researching dr. b iden, i found that she is, too. i also found that we had a lot in common. we had both got married in the 1970's and had children in the 1980's. i started at the -- teaching in the -- minneapolis and 1970, and taught until 2004 when i retire. she began as a high-school english teacher, and for a time taught at a college for adolescents. she later moved on to community

colleges. i saw a blog entry from 2008. she sat in on a conference call, one of the participants said, i cannot remember when i last heard from a public figure who sounded so much like the people i work with every day. that is probably because i'm a teacher. she knows what it's like to be in a classroom. jill biden believes in community colleges. both of my children have attended community colleges. my daughter went dakota county tech and now does designed. my son went to a technical school for two years, and got his degree in sound engineering.

they did not have job placement and the credits did not transfer -- he went back and will get his associate's degree and wants to go onto a 4 year college after that. i also found that she helps to co-founded program -- having been a primary teacher, i appreciate getting books into the hands of kids. so that when it comes to school they are ready. in 2003, after surgery and chemotherapy i'm doing fine. [applause] friends who were diagnosed with breast cancer -- she started a breast health initiative in delaware. they have talked around 10,000 high-school girls learn about early detection. she is a military mom who has

worked to bring attention to the strength and courage displayed by military families, and she wrote a book called "got less our trips," based on the experiences of her family. if you are looking for a dip for a military family -- gift for a military family. biden in amherst in real life. shia strive to make the world a better place, whether working -- she has strived to make the world a better place, whether working with children or military families, teaching adults who need a second chance, or advocating for causes. she has always been a special person. i would like to welcome jill biden. [applause]

>> thank you. hello, everyone. thanks for being here today. i really appreciated -- it is great to be here in minnesota again. i want to thank carol for her comments. i think you should come on the road with me. [laughter] thank you, governor, for being here. i really appreciated. i appreciate your friendship. most of all, i am here because i want to thank all of you for what you are doing for our campaign. i see that you all have to the boards and are all getting ready -- you are getting ready to go out and canvas. thank you so much for being here today, what you are doing for this campaign. over the last couple of weeks, i have been traveling around the country. yesterday i was in iowa. tomorrow i will be in wisconsin. i see the energy and the enthusiasm that is building,

just like here, just like in this room today. we are moving forward. i think this campaign is really connecting to people because it is about people's lives. for me, it is no different. it connects to my life as well. even if joe or not running for vice president, i would still be involved in this campaign. as carol said, i am a full-time teacher. as she knows as a teacher, teaching is not just what i do, it is who i am. i am sure there are other teachers here. who are the teachers? [applause] thank you. thank you. you know, when we were elected, i thought of my role as second lady, i was thinking, i knew i would have to continue to teach. because it is my passion. as every teacher knows, you have

to love what you are doing. i love going to work every day. i teach at northern virginia community college. i teach english. i was there thursday giving midterm conference is on how they did on their exams. that sort of thing. i'll be there again on tuesday. i teach because of my students. it is really -- they inspire me. i think, carol, you know that well. as a teacher, i'm going to make sure that we continue to invest in quality education. and that is why president obama and my husband are moving this country forward. we have already made so much progress in education. think about the things they have done -- double funding for pell grants. those of you who have kids or your son are going to school on a pell grant. they have reformed the student loan process so it makes it easier for students to repay

loans. they have made smart investments in our public schools. i have been there. that is where i started out -- in the public-school system. also, we have made community colleges a cornerstone of our education policy. you know, i have been there almost 20 years. i truly believe in the power of community colleges to change lives. i am also a military mom. our sons beau is delaware army national guard. he was a ploy for a year to i raq, and that was a really tough year for our family. that is why i wrote the book. by the way, all the money goes to scholarships for military families. [applause] i wanted people to know what it was like to have a son or daughter, a family member, who was deployed.

when we were elected, one of the biggest hope was that barack would end the war in iraq, and he kept his promises he did. [applause] he also brought osama bin laden to justice, and now we're going to responsibly and the war in afghanistan by 2014. [applause] i know how much military famil ies love our country, and what they sacrificed to do what they do. i want to make sure that all of our veterans and their families get the benefits they earned and the respect that they deserve. as a military mom, it is important to me that we keep moving our country forward. look at what we have done, what barack and joe have done. they have expanded the gi bill

so that veterans going back and get caught -- go to college, get an education. they have given a tax credit to businesses to hire veterans and have supported military families and military organizations and care givers in real ways that have affected their lives. finally, i am involved in this election as a woman who cares about the direction of our country. i have seen what joe and barack have done in fighting for our rights and freedoms every single day. as you know, the president signed, the first thing he signed was the lilly ledbetter fair pay act. [applause] they have also fought so hard for health care reform. you know, insurance companies will no longer be able to charge women more than they charge a man. [applause] and they cannot charge a copay

for basic services like prenatal care or mammograms or contraception. i see a lot of young people here -- you can stay on your parent'' insurance until you are 26 years old. that is a big deal. [applause] i am sure most of you know that they cannot discriminate against you because of a pre-existing condition. [applause] most of all, the president and vice-president know just how important it is for women to make our own decisions about our own health care. [applause] so many of you women now -- women of my generation now, the younger ones may not, but you need to learn it. we fought really hard for roe v. wade. we fought hard for

contraception. we fought really hard for equal rights. we want to make sure that our daughters and our granddaughters do not have to go back and read- fight those fights that we fought decades ago -- a re-fight those fights that we fought decades ago. [applause] i'm right there. and you have to -- remember, you have to educate young women and men about the supreme court and what it is going to be like if we have super-conservatives appointed to the court. think how far that will take us back. so we have to live with all of these consequences for decades to come. so we have to keep moving forward, not just on women's issues, but on all issues. so really, moving forward, we have to keep moving this country forward. think about it -- moving forward means that after the worst

economic crisis since the great depression, we have seen at 31 straight months of job growth in private-sector jobs. that is 5.2 million new jobs. we've seen manufacturing and exports on the rise. we have seen that unemployment rate as low as it was when president obama took office. auto industry on the verge of collapse is now back up on its feet. [applause] tell isk, don't history. forward means we all have to keep working so that we can create a better life for all americans. that means, no matter where you come from, what you look like, or who you love, we have to just keep moving forward. that is why i am so excited to see all of you here today. [applause]

the election is just 17 days away. we are counting it down, aren't we? to work. you are ready you need to go out there and vote and get other people to vote and take people to the polls. you are already working for us. i cannot thank you enough. i think here in minnesota you have a program -- four shifts for for more years. if you can call somebody in your book club or exercise group or school, your neighbors, give them a little bit of time. my sister was out in pennsylvania. everybody, if everybody pulls together. this election is between two very clear choices, two distinct paths that americans will take. i want to thank you again for

being here. you are the ones who are really going to take us forward on november 6. thank you so much. [applause] >> tomorrow, political analysts discuss the role of the catholic vote in past elections and the role of catholics and the 20 trough campaign. live from catholic university, beginning at 12:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. kentucky senator rand paul campaign for republican presidential candidate mitt romney in new hampshire. you will hear introductory remarks by the co-chair of the group, new hampshire students for mitt romney. this is about 40 minutes.

>> good afternoon. i am the new hampshire chair for new hampshire students for mitt romney. i want to welcome you all here today. can get a big round of applause for senators rand paul, who will be joining us momentarily? [applause] if i could just see a show of hands -- how many people here are college students? a show of hands? and ok. this election, this election is about our future, about what kind of a country we want to have. do we want a good job? do you want to bring down the deficit and rein in spending? we must come together. we have to work together. go to your local victory office -- get involved. make sure that in november, we send mitt romney and paul ryan to the white house and send barack obama packing back to chicago. [applause]

because we will win this election, and we will get this country back on track. we do not have to settle for this. america can do better, and we will do better with new leadership. please let me introduce you, state representative adam schrader. [applause] >> thank you very much. i'm a state rep. i'm here on the doorstep to durham in newmarket. it is a fantastic turnaround today. hopefully everybody comes out to vote november 6. i encourage you to do that. as the gentleman said earlier, every vote on every one of these positions matters. one of the reasons i'm here today is because i know mitt romney and paul ryan understand small businesses really drive our economy and create jobs.

i am also a small-business owner. we own a place called the music club. i say that because we happen to not just create jobs, but we are one of many small businesses that our job incubators. we have musicians and artists and local farmers and local fishermen we are supporting on a daily basis throughout the year. it really creates an effective local economy. that is one of the main reasons that i'm here today and supporting the mitt romney and paul ryan ticket. i hope you do the same and think about that when you go to vote on november 6. an example of this would be having worked in the legislature as well, i was able to work with local small brewery here in the state this year and allow them to sell their product at farmers' markets and include products they buy from local farmers in the beer they brew to allow our beer culture to foster here in the state and create tourism and economic development. also working with local oyster

farmers in great bay, worked on cleaning up the pollution from a pro-business and pro-environment perspective. these are the kinds of things that i do not when you're pro small business and pro economy, these are the things that can happen. please do come out and vote, look for adam schrader in new market, look for bob goodman in new market on that side of the ticket as well, he's connected with paul campaigns tissue paul ryan campaigns here in the past. the alternative is another obama administration, more taxing, more squeezing, the kind of thing that's closing down businesses like mine here in new market. i snow senator paul -- i know senator rand paul will do

better, we need him back in office. coming up next, adam sanborn. >> how are you this afternoon? fantastic. let me ask you a question. in the next four years, how many of you will be looking for a job? in the next four years how many of you want a job? in the next four to six years how many of you might want to buy a house, maybe a new car? it's an amazing thing because not that long ago, i was in the exact same position you are in. our economy wasn't doing well, we were truly at a real crossroads in america. and we had the option of what we had versus what this guy

named ronald reagan might bring us. think about what you need if you're looking for a job in the next four years. you need someone that knows how to create jobs. you need someone that understands budgets, that understands thousand live within our means. understands what it means to have personal freedom and personal responsibility. you know, i've been incredibly blessed and humbled to be associated with this sweet man you might know, his name is dr. ron paul. and i was so -- it was an amazing experience for me to have that opportunity to co-chair his campaign, with one of your professors, senator jim

forsyth, he tried to be here today. some of you know him. but the paul family opened up to us. i know you guys supported him fully. what i see today in rand paul is so much of his father. as we're transitioning at the presidential level to what i believe we need to do in order for you to have a job, in order for you to make sure you have your own future, and it's not even about your future because a big part of what makes you all, as college graduates, is the same type of transition we're talking about. you're about to realize that money no longer falls off the tree we call mom and dad. that it actually takes a job. in order to get that job, we need someone that knows how to create them. it's kind of funny, we're seing

the same transition from 2010 until today. that there are more and more of us who are business owners who decided to take their turn and see if they can come in and find pragmatic solutions. adam is a business owner, i'm a business owner and the good doctor is a business owner, so was his dad. i ask you to pay particular attention today to what senator rand paul will talk about. he's a gentleman that has shown true conviction, which is what we need more of today in politics. he has a path to fix our problems. we've been fortunate enough to spend some time with mitt romney and understand that today we have a decision to make and we're asking all of you for your help. because if you want a job in the next four years, i'm asking you to support mitt romney.

he will prove to you, just as ronald reagan proved to me, that quay we can fix this. we can only fix it with your help. so let me be one of the proudest guys in new hampshire today to introduce my friend, u.s. senator rand paul. [applause] >> thank you. thanks for coming out. i'd like to introduce my wife, kelly. it's our 25th anniversary today. we just sent our first son off to college and like some of your parents, when you went off to college, your parents were worried about you -- about you, may still be worried about you, are you showing up for class, particularly the 8:00 a.m.

classes. what are you going to choose for your major? will you still be living at home with your parents? we read up about it, there's books about everything. there's a story about how parents can determine whether their child will come out ok. the parents hid in the closet, they devised a test they put out a $100 bill, a bible, and a fifth of bourbon. they thought if he figured -- if he picks up the $100 bill, he's going to be a businessman, if he picks up the bible, he'll be a preacher, and takes a swig of the bourbon, closes it and

puts it under his arm and march -- and if he takes the bourbon, he'll join a fraternity. he picks up the money, and then the bible and then takes a swig of the bourbon and puts the bottle under his arm. his parents said, it's worse than we thought, he'll be a politician. we made a rule a few years ago that says you have to read the bills, so two months ago they give us a bill, it's put online at midnight, it's printed at 9:00 the next morning and we're voting on it at noon. it's like, you don't have to be too good at math to figure out that's not 48 hours. i made a point of order that that's not 48 hours. the rules allow them to override. 77 senators voted against 22 of us and said we deem it not so.

we deem 12 hours to be 48 hours. 12 hours became 48 hours. about a year ago we had a big debate about raising the debt ceiling. some of us, the conservatives, said we'll raise the debt ceiling because probably we have to but we'll do it only if you seriously address the deficit and say we will pass a balanced budget amendment. not just vote on it, we said, you pass a balanced budget amendment, we'll raise the debt ceiling whenever you need but from here on out, you have to balance your budget. we didn't win. we lost. but they did pass some restrictions called statutory caps, some numbers that said, we're only going to spend so much. and they've broken that 25 times. if you raise your hand and say, i have a point of order, you're breaking your own rules, they vote to deem it not so. you're supposed to have a budget every year. that's the law of the land. it's been the law since 1974. we haven't had a budget in

three years. when you pass appropriations bills, there's about 12 different cat goifers government. when you learned about government as a kid, you learn there were committees, bills would go to committees, be discussed, come out of committee, be voted on, the president signed them, they become law. nothing comes out of committee. there are no appropriations bills. if you come to me and lobby me and say, we want this special thing for new hampshire, i don't even get to vote on it. we vote on what's called a continuing resolution, which is 2,000 pages that no one reads and we continue funding goth the same way it's been funded. here's the problem. we're funding government but we're spending over $1 trillion we don't have each year. so we bring in about $2.2 trillion, we're spending about $3. trillion. give or take a few hundred billion each year. but it's over $1 trillion in tet. we've added $6 trillion to the debt in the last four years. it is unsustainable. you'll hear people on both sides of the aisle say it is. but the people in power are the

ones adding the debt. some of you may say, well republicans did it too. you're right. just not quite as fast. republicans doubled the debt in the early part of this century but the democrats are quadrupling it. and it's expanding exponentially. you ask yourself, why is the debt expanding so rapidly? one primary cause, and this isn't republicans' fault or democrats' fault, it's entitlements. medicare, medicaid, and social security are 2/3's of all spending. they call it mandatory spending because they don't think they have an answer to do it differently. add in interest and that segment of the budget, 2/3's of the budget, over the next decade, will become all of the budget. no money for national defense new york money for roads, no money for education, no money for anything else other than those three programs. that's what we're headed on. it's a collision course with disaster. i sat down in a room with

president obama a year ago, all 47 republicans, president across from me, biden next to me, i said you have to fix these. all you have to do is math. raise the age. gradually raise the age of eligible. they both nod their heads and say, you can. i tell people look, it's not republicans' fault that the entitlements are broken. if it's anybody's fault it's your great grandparents' kids -- fault, they had too many kids. and the next generation didn't have enough kids. each successive population since 1945 has been smaller. as they get smaller, the tax base is smaller. people are living longer. when social security started the average life expectancy was about 65. now it's 80. and it's really not 0, because if you make 5, it's probably 87.

people are living well into their 80's. we have to change the system or we could raise taxes. but what happens if you raise taxes? this is what the president would do, he'd raise your taxes. if you expand and you want to pay medicare and social security taxes enough to make the system solvent, you'd have like a 20% payroll tax. currently your payroll tax is 7.5%. what do you think will happen to the working class in this country if everybody is playing -- paying a 20% payroll tax? it's unsustainable. the president will say, no, i'm just going to tax rich people. the problem is, rich people pay all the taxes. that's what they don't tell you. who is paying the taxes? rich peel. the income tax. the top 1% that the president hates so much, they pay 40% of the income tax. if you want them to pay their fair share you'd have to reduce their taxes. but -- the top 5% make $200,000 or more, they pay 70% of the

income tax. so 5% of the people are paying 70% of the income tax. you want to make it fair, you'd have to reduce their taxes. it's ridiculous to say for anybody with a straight face to say they're not paying their fair share, the rich aren't paying their fair share, it's a lie. it's untrue. here's the thing is, to me, i'm not up here saying, you're a rich person, you're a middle class person, you're a poor person, i want to punish one group or the other. i want everybody to thrive. but i don't care whoer, i do know this, though. and i know this, this is something that is true, that cannot be denied, the private sector creates jobs. jobs in the public sector are paid for by those working in the private sector. if you leave money in the private sector, with whomever, ideally we ought to leave it with those who earned it, because it's theirs, the more you leave in the private sector, the more you grow the private sector, the more you can have some government. the president's viewpoint is the opposite he says, let's

just hire more government workers. that's the dumbest thing i've ever heard. government workers are not evil. i am one. i know there are good government workers. but hiring more of me won't make the economy recover. i am a burden. all government workers are a burden. it doesn't mean they're bad people. teachers -- my kids go to public schools, i went to public schools but teachers are a cost. you don't just hire more teachers and all of a sudden the economy grows. you have to have education. but he gets so many things fundamentally wrong. he says, well, a lot of people are smart, but it was the roads in front of the school that got them to succeed. that's crazy. we just came from murphy's over in manchester. do you think he is successful because there's a road? sure, roads help everybody. but nine out of 10 restaurants fail. nine out of 10 small businesses

fail. when i graduated from high school, i was one of 450 kids but only two kids went to medical school. did i go to medical school because there was a road in front of my school? my staff tells me i shopt send out tweets, but i do, sometimes. after he said you didn't build it, doesn't matter if you're smart or you work hard. i sent out a tweet that said, you might be an economic illiterate if you think the roads create business success and not the other way around. think about it. if the rich are paying most of the income tax, who is paying for the roads? people who are successful. people are successful, pay taxes, pay for the stuff you want from government. so if you want to punish those who are successful, you won't have the stuff you want from government also. we've tried this before. a while back, the punish the rich scheme has been around since f.d.r. f.d.r. did the same thing and business was terrified of f.d.r. people sat on their hands,

money sat in banks and under mattresses and they wouldn't invest because they were terrified he raised taxes five years in a row. he had a special list of 70 rich people he vilified in the media every day. the economy got worse in the first six years under f.d.r. it doesn't work. we're we re-doing the same game book once again. now some have said, well the president, at least he got bin laden. at least -- and i'm glad. i'm glad he got bin laden. i'm all for that. but i have some questions and you get presidential candidates up here, so i want you to ask the president this when the comes up here, where the hell were the marines? in libya, where were the marines? there were no uniformed marines guarding our ambassador? what do you think the most embass -- dangerous embassy in the world is? libya or iraq. iraq i think they've got 17,000

people guarding the ambassador. they're not all marines, probably 1,700 marines, but there's a host of armed people guarding the ambassador. the wall is 10 feet tall, we have a fortress guarding the ambassador there. we didn't have uniformed marines? there was personnel, a 16-person security team. if the president comes up here, ask him why in the hell did you send them home? they specifically requested to stay. colonel wood who is head of the security team, says he sent the cables. i want to stay in libya because it's unsafe and the ambassador is unsafe. the president says the buck stops here, ask him where were the marines? ask him, where the hell was that 16-person security team? and then finally ask him, what happened to the planes? there was a dc-3 there supposed to be able to help people out of the country or to must've

people around the country, they took their plane. they took their plane on may 4 of this year. you know what happened on may 8 of this year? four days later? the state department spent $108,000 buying a new electrical charging station to green up the vienna embassy. so you have to ask yourself, is the green initiative, is the global warming campaign, more important than the security of an embassy? greening up the vienna embassy. you know, the electric car, it's subsidized $250,000 per car. we probably spent $1 million to buy these electric cars to make a political statement in vienna. we spent $400,000 for an electrical charging station, but we wouldn't have one marine guarding our embassy, we wouldn't allow 16 personnel to stay in libya, we wouldn't allow them a plane but we've got enough money to make a show

of a very politicized agenda by the president. i think it's inexcusable and if he says the buck stops here, someone should be fired. the president likes to bash rich people he likes to bash those who are successful, likes to bash the so-called 1%. that is unless you're a big donor of his. so crony capitalism and corporate welfare is fine if you've been a big donor. solyndra got $540 million of your money and they went bankrupt. who owns solyndra? 20th richest man in the world a billionaire, got a $500 million loan from you. do you think he really is sincere that he's going after the 1 whkt when he's taking your money and giving it to the

1% in loans? do you know who arrived in solyndra loan? $500 million loan. do you know who aproved it? he's married to the solyndra attorney. solyndra's attorney that negotiated the loan is married to someone in the department of energy who helped approve the loan. anybody ever heard of the kennedy family? they got $1.8 billion. i'm guessing they're in the 1%. snoke $1.8 billion loan for a company called bright source. i don't do high finance but we've got some finance majors, i'll let you tell me this. the gross revenue is $13 million and they got a $1. billion loan. -- in the $1.8 billion loan. they're in the slow cycle of going bankrupt. we've had four or five other companies go bankrupt. why? because the president thinks he's smarter than all of you. every time you go out and buy

something at wal-mart you decide who succeeds. with your purchases you decide prices. he decided, i'm going to make a whole industry out of something that's not profitable, solar panels, and do it by rewarding witch people with loans from regular people. it's inexcusable and you shouldn't let the demagoguery sit. you shouldn't let it be out there that he somehow cares about the regular folks and is going to go after the rich folks. he's taking money from regular folks and giving it to the rich folks, through crony capitalism, through corporate welfare. do both parties do it sometimes? yes. some of the department of energy loans came from republicans as well. i'll oppose it, no matter who is doing it. [applause] but ultimately, this election for me is about something very fundamental about our country. it's about the american dream. and i think we have two different belief systems, we

have two different visions of where the american dream goes or comes from. i think the american dream is not where you are now, it's where you want to go. and it's do you believe that you're stuck where you are, or do you believe that there is a future for you? do you believe that if you work hard it makes a difference. do you believe that if you go to class and make straight a's you'll do better than if you make straight f's? i don't think it's random who succeeds. there will be somebody in your class that will make straight f's and be a millionaire and prove me wrong but herries is -- merit is based on how hard you work. how smart you are is based on how hard you work for the most part. do we believe in the merit based idea or philosophy or do we think things are random and ought to be redistributed by somebody who thinks they're smarter than we are. somebody in washington saying,

i think some people should have -- i think everybody should have one car instead of some people having three cars and some people having no cars. or do we believe in the american dream? the numbers are staggering. one of the greatest things about our country is the mobility. 60% of americans born in the bottom 20%, born into poverty, will climb up the ladder of success and leave poverty behind. 60%. there are people in this room who can tell you either they did it or their parents did it. they came from nothing and they succeeded. the question is, do you want a handout or a hand up? these are different philosophies. we've given away $11 -- we've given away 11 million cell phones, over $1 billion cell phones. i laughingly said in kentucky it used to be a bottle of whiskey, now it's a cell phone for your vote. do you think people are ultimately more happy with that cell phone? they're happy for a while but are they getting anywhere?

are they getting out of poverty? are they getting the self-worth you have from having a job and earning a living? i think with the hand that gives you the handout, the other hand is keeping you down because you're only good to them as long as you're dependent. the difference in dreams between president obama and governor romney is, we want you to realize the self-worth of having your own job. we want millions of new people to have jobs. but we know it happens in the private sector. the president might stand up here and say the same thing, he wants everybody to have a job too but that's not reflected in his policies. the other thing that's not reflective in his understanding that jobs have to come from the private sector. milton friedman put it well when he said, nobody spends someone else's money as wisely or frugely as they spend their own. that's why you want to minimize government. government count do anything very well. it's not that government is inherently stupid, although

that's a debatable point, it's that they don't get the right signals. why does government make bad decisions? if i go and borrow $100,000 and start a pizza parlor, every night i'm going to worry about paying it back. every day i'm going to worry about trying to minimize my costs to make a profit at my pizza restaurant. but if i spend $10 trillion on something from government, you dent worry about it. it's not your money. it's such a large number, nobody could. so government never has the right kind of signals or care about your money. you care about it more but it's also more productive if it's left with you. when thomas payne said that government is a necessary evil, what he meant by that is, every ounce of government you get, you give up an ounce of freedom. that doesn't mean you don't have government. we're going to have roads, we're going to have schools, we're going to have the judiciary. there's a lot of things we need government for. but when we get to a question

of, should government be in the car business or should government in the banking business, we should ask, is government very good at any kind of business? i think the dream is fundamentally different between president obama and governor romney. i also think that what we've gotten out of president obama hasn't worked. 23 million people are out of work. gas prices have doubled. food prices are rising. more than anything else, more people are becoming dependent. they're being put into this category of dependency. i think you lose hope. i think your hope is, and your self-worth comes from having a job, that only comes by liking people in business, by encouraging the private sector. when you go out and make your decision this year, i hope you'll think long and hard about your future, as andy said, you'll be looking for jobs, looking to buy a house. right now our government is so large and so onerous, it is an enormous drag. some people say the debt is costing a million jobs a year.

we're borrowing $50,000 every second. it's a burden and it's being passed on to you by your parents. so think long and hard, get out there, make a decision, and if you decide, like me, that the best hope for our country is to move forward with governor romney, get out there and work. it's going to be very close. thank you very much. [applause] >> next month, the chinese communist party selects the country's next president. the heritage foundation looks at china's political transition and what it means for that country and for u.s.-china relations. that's live tomorrow, 10:30 -- 10:30 a.m. eastern on c-span2. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> former south dakota democratic senator george mcgovern died today at the age of 90. he was a decorated world war ii

bomber pilot who said he learned to hate war by waging it and became a fervent opponent of the vietnam war and an advocate for feeding the hungry around the world. in 2009, former senator mcgovern was the recipient of the freedom award, presented by the u.s. capitol historical society. here are his remarks. >> thank you so much. frank, that wise serpent business is why i asked you to introduce me tonight. i knew you'd come through. if you've been in public life any length of time, you learn it's very wise to select the person who introduces you carefully. i'll never forget the first peach, public speech i had to make when i arrived here as a brand new congressman in 1956.

i'd only been in that office about a week and i got a call from hubert humphrey, senior senator and nationally known figure, and he said, george, i wonder if you'd do me a big favor. i'm supposed to speak at a big political rally in mankato, minnesota, tonight and lyndon has scheduled a vote tonight that i just can't miss. i've got to be there. i said, hubert, i can't take your place for something leek that. a junior congressman, nobody has ever heard of, you go out there and speak for the most eloquent spokesman in our party. i can't do that. he said look, george, this is very important to me. if you will do it, i'll

remember that for a long time to come. so against my better judgment, i agreed to go out there. what i hadn't counted on is that he forgot to call the people in minnesota. and to say that i was coming. and when i got off the plane, i saw a rather officious looking man scanning the crowd, looking around, somewhat worried, so i finally walked over to him and i said, sir are you looking for george mcgovern? he said, who is that? i said, well, senator humphrey asked me if i would come out and take his place here tonight because of an important vote in the senate. he said, oh, my god. this is just awful. he said, we've been selling

tickets to this dinner for six months. i thought he might recover by the time he was to introduce me an hour later but when he got up, he said, my fellow minnesotans, i have some very bad news. congressman mcgovern is going to speak instead of hubert humphrey. anyway, since then, i try to get the best friend i've got around to introduce me. well, chairman coleman, president sarasen, the general secretary, who i've got ton know well these last few days, suzanne dicks, and i'm glad to

see elizabeth dole here tonight and to see my longtime friend joe tidings. robert dole, elizabeth's distinguished husband, and i, have become bipartisan partners , we're sponsoring a program that i think is very important, it's called the george mcgovern-robert dole -- what a terrific title, the george mcgovern-robert dole food for education and nutrition. this is just a fancy title for a school lunch for every hungry school child in the world. we're reaching about 22 million now which means that another 80 million or so out there. i hope we'll both live long enough to accomplish that goal.

dr. baker has given us this wonderful historical background , i don't know whether i can match that with what i want to say tonight but i thought it might be appropriate to at least begin by telling this distinguished historical society that i have recently published a book on perhaps the greatest of all americans, abraham lincoln. more books have been published about this man than all the other presidents combined. tynes books is doing a series beginning with george washington, coming down to the

president day and they had a different author for each president. i drew abraham lincoln. more -- as i said, more books have been written about him than all the other presidents, but not only that, there have been more words printed about abraham lincoln and sayings of abraham lincoln than any other figure in world history except for jesus christ. i think that's remarkable. so why yet another book on this man? how do you find anything new about a man, he's had many books written on him, including doris kearns' book on his cabinet.

before answering that question, let me tell you that happily, as of last week, my little lincoln book has become a bestseller. [applause] somehow, unbeknownst to me, this lincoln-mcgovern ticket is selling better than the one i had in 1972. i got into this when arthur schlesinger spotted me in a restaurant in new york city three years ago, and he made a beeline, eleanor was still with me at that time, he made a beeline for me, he said, george, i've got a very important request. i'm the editor in chief of a series of books on all the

presidents and i definitely want you to write on one of those presidents. pick anybody you want. unless it's already been spoken for. and i said, well, arthur, i just can't do that. elizabeth, i mentioned, the mcgovern-dole school lunch program, i can't be diverted from that right now. he saiding look, wrouff been telling me for 40 years that northwestern is a better school than harvard. now is your chance to either put up or shut up. because i'm going to criticize that book all the way through. i'm the editor in chief. well, i said, i guess if i could get my hero abraham lincoln, the founder of the republican party, by the way, i guess if i could get lincoln, i might do it.

he said, too bad. president clinton has already asked for lincoln. well, i said, if he changes his mind, give me a call but i better take a pass on this one otherwise. a year later, shortly before he die, arthur called me and said, guess what? president clinton says he just can't do that lincoln book. so that's how i got into this business here. lincoln was a figure that i think we all admire. he had to overcome two enormous handicaps. neither one of which i think most biographers have given enough attention. the first of those was the

absence of any formal education. he had two years and part of that with iten rant teachers who -- with iten rat teachers who would come to the vill and and then move on he had one to two years of that kind of education. but in that time he learned to read and he learned to write. and he never quit, read, reading, reading. writing, writing, writing. all of his life. he read everything. -- he read everything he could get his hands on. especially the king james version of the bible. which is not bad english diction. he read the pilgrim's progress that my dad also had me reading when i was a youngster. he read shakespeare's tragedies.

as well as his comedies. probably discovered, as many of us have, the small line that divides comedy and tragedy in our lives. and then everything else, blackstone's commentaries, robert burns' poetry, any time he could get a book, it highly irritated his father who was a hard working farmer, lincoln hated farming. no matter what you've heard about splitting rails, his great energy drive was in the brain and reading and enlarging his knowledge. when his father would give him something to do on the farm, particularly he would find lincoln a couple of hours later, propped up against a

tree, reading a book. he thought he was lazy. and he would frequently severely criticize lincoln. the relationships between them got so tense that lincoln left home and didn't even attend his father's funeral. because of the bad feeling that developed between the two of them. but fortunately, he had two very creative, wonderful mothers, the first mrs. lincoln spotted his intellectual abilities. she spotted his ability to retain what he had read. and she urged him, despite his father's admonitions to the contrary, to read at every opportunity. when she died, the second mrs.

lincoln was equally effective in spotting the talents and the intellect of lincoln. and she urged him to pursue those tasks. so he had to overcome the absence of only two years of formal education, no high school, no junior high, no high school, no college, no law school. nothing but two years of elementary training. but he probably became one of the best-read presidents. he couldn't read the class exs as jefferson did. jefferson was fluent in six languages, he could both read and speak. but he read everything he could find that was in english. and became a very well read,

knowledgeable president. the same on his writing. he would work on letters that he wrote to individual people. like some of his work on an essay -- like some would work on an essay they were going to get a grade on he schooled himself to become a great writer, i think easily the best one that served in the white house. jefferson was very good but his greatest writing, the declaration of independence, came before he was president. and nothing quite compares to the gettysburg address of --, of the people, by the people, for the people. pretty good definition of democracy. i wish we had it today. he also wrote these great inaugural addresses. the very first one read almost

like poetry. that great phrase, the better angels of our nature. lincoln didn't have a speech writer, but when he had a speech as good as he thought he could write it, he'd call in one or two members of his cabinet and he would read the speech to them. and they would pick up ideas. the better angels of our nature came from secretary seward, the secretary of state. he said he thought one of lincoln's phrases was a little flat. a little dull. and he gave him the better angels of our nature. i wish i'd written that. it was a great phrase and one that lincoln used well.

he had a -- he had a great sense of humor, which i think we can all appreciate. he was once in a debate with a political rival who accused him of being two-faced. you remember the familiar lines where lincoln said, if i could save the onion by freeing tissue save the union by freeing all the slaves, that's what i would do. if i could save the union by freeing none of the slaves, that's what i would do. if i could save the union by freeing part of the slaves and holding others, which is what he eventually did, i would do that. but the union must be preserved

. i've often wondered, not because i wrote this book, if lincoln had known that 600,000 young guys were going to die, would he have resisted secession? it's a hard question to answer. but if -- it was a terrible loss in that war. one of the paradoxes that lincoln hated war, he was a man of peace. he was a strong advocate of negotiation and of diplomacy. those were the thing he is felt most confident about. he hated war but he was willing to pay that price in order to save the union. he thought his greatest

contribution was the emancipation proclamation. i would very respectfully disagree. i think his greatest achievement was saving the union. and i think even in his mind, he would agree with that. he may have been talking about the greatest specific document he was attached to. but even then, i think haze great achievement is saving the union. the emancipation proclamation freed, after all, only the slaves in the 11 states of the confederacy. there were slaves in a number of other states. it did not free them because lynn condition said he was issuing the emancipation proclamation as a war measure to advance the cause of the

union forces by freeing a sizable percentage of the work force. of the -- of the work force of the south. many of them were not freed even by that emancipation because they were in a part of the country where lincoln had no authority. which was the southern states. so i think that while it was an important document, it really awaited the 13th amendment, which lincoln supported after the war, to free all of the slaves and that's the part that is enduring, that has lasted from that day to this. lynn cob also, and i'm going to conclude on this point, lincoln also had a great sense of history. i forgot to give you my one illustration of his humor.

this opponent accuse him of being two-faced. made that charge several times in the debate. lincoln said when it came his turn to speak, he said the -- does the gentleman really believe that if god almighty had given me two faces i would wear this ugly one that i have on? lincoln always thought he was ugly. thought he was homely. i think he had a very noble face. sad, very sad, hard to find a photograph of lincoln where he's smiling. but in any event, he -- this sadness of lincoln, i think stemmed from what today we would call clinical depression. it's very common, as we know, among our fellow citizens.

and he had a bad case of it. he called it melancholy. doctors didn't know what it was. they had no treatment, no paxil, no lithium, no electric shock therapy, no nothing. so he had to carry that burden all through his adult years. he told one of his colleagues in the illinois state senate that he had quit carrying a knife because he feared that he would slit his throat. in one of these moments of despondency. as a matter of fact he talked about suicide frequently. especially in his younger days. but on into maturity. and what it was, we now know, is that miserable affliction

that can hit any of us, clinical depression. i know a little bit about it because we've had it in my family with terry, terry treated depression by a tumbler full of vodka. she was great after a big slug of vodka, the life of the party. unfortunately, she became an alcoholic, is she had this -- so she had this dual burden to carry, alcoholism on one hand, depression on the other and it eventually took her life. she was found frozen to death at christmas time out in the snows of wisconsin. but lincoln suffered that way

too. he wupt a drinking man, didn't treat it with alcohol but he suffered terribly from depression. so he had to overcome that during these years in the white house. it didn't help that he provided for four years over the bloodiest war in our national history. he was in his office one day and a group of women were waiting to see him and they heard him laughing in the oval office, two or three men with him, raucous laughter coming out of there. so when they got in, they thanked the president for taking time to see them but they said, mr. president, we must tell you, that we were distressed to hear you and your colleagues here laughing at a time when thousands of young americans are dying, both north

and south. and lincoln said, well, i can appreciate your reaction. but i must tell you, if i could not occasionally laugh, with this terrible war in progress, i think my heart would break and all the business of this office would cease. and interestingly, the dozen or so women all agreed with that and told the story. -- told the story oother people about the trials and tribulations of the president. so he was a great figure. started to say a while ago, he was a great student of history. one thing he had in common with jefferson. you read malone's six or seven volumes on jefferson and you become aware he devoured -- he

had an enormous library but heavily weighted on the side of history. so that should please this society as it does me. i came back from world war ii, a bomber pilot, and went, there was a wonderful program called the g.i. bill, boy, when i heard that thing explained, that's all i needed. i didn't have a dime. hade a wife, a child who was born while i was -- had a wife a child who was born while i was overseas. i was in italy just as was my friend bob dole and at the same time but when i came home and learned about that bill, i went to northwestern university, one of the most expensive schools in the country, i guess.

where did you go? >> minnesota and michigan. >> ok. well i went to northwestern. just one better than minnesota and michigan. and i went all the way to -- i went all the way through to a ph.d. in history. american history. i wish all of our leaders today had a little more history and i wish some of them would read the history of afghanistan, frank. here's a place that's been invaded, been invaded i think more than any other place on earth. it's mountains, it's ravines so deep you think you're looking right down into the world below. and everybody that has gone in there has lived to regret it. you can go clear back to alexander the great.

he may have been great, but not great enough to know he couldn't get his troops stationed to bring control of afghanistan. hard to find anybody there. you've got a war lord sitting on top of every mountain with a trail down below -- with a tribe down below. they don't give a damn about kabul, they're interested in their tribe and their ethnic roots. you have following alexander the great, you had genghis kahn, he had -- he couldn't function there very well either. finally gave up. then queen victoria. the great monarches of england in the 19th century. they tried it for -- off and on for 50 years.

and finally gave up. and then, of course, the russians. we used to call them the other super power. they sent 100,000 troops into afghanistan in 1979, 25,000 of them killed. these young russian boys and men. another 25,000 crippled or injured. they stayed there for 11 years and finally called it kits. -- it quits. the russian treasury was empty. some of our soviet experts believe that it was that ill-advised venture into afghanistan and the exhaust -- exhausting the society treasury that brought down the soviet union. so that instead of the united soviet socialist republic, we now have 16 independent countries. so that's a modern

recommendation that what this society stands for and en-- in encouraging history needs to be heard by some of our leaders. i don't want to mislead you. i'm a supporter of president barack. i campaigned for him. i think he's a brilliant, articulate young guy. i think he's wrong in increasing our troops in afghanistan. and i intend to tell him so. thanks ever so much. [applause] >> senator, on behalf of the u.s. capitol historical society we want to present you with this freedom award presented to the honorable george mcgovern in grateful recognition of your leadership in the united states congress and for all you have

accomplished domestically and internationally to advance greater public appreciate for public service, humanity and democracy. thank you, sir. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> see the presidential debate tomorrow night live on c-span, c-span radio and c-span.org. watch and engage. next, "q & a" with npr host steve inskeep. next, brit -- then, british prime minister david cameron takes questions in the house of commons. then a discussion of u.s. and british banking standards. >> tell folks he was the ideal candidate for the tea party. now suddenly he's saying, what, who me?

he's forgetting what his own positions are. and he's betting that you will too. i mean, he's changing up so much, back tracking, sidestepping. we've got -- we've got to name this condition he's going through. i think -- i think it's called romnesia. >> so this election is going to come down to being a choice between two different americas. an america where government makes the rules where government is larger and larger, where it takes more and more from the american people, where it runs more of our businesses. and increasingly runs our lives. or instead an america where we restore the principles that made the nation the nation that it is. we bring back the principles of the declaration of independence, recognize that god gave us our rights and they include life and liberty and the pur o